Bruises on My Memories Part 1
by electric.currant
Summary: In cursed Storybrooke (whose temporal mechanics are not unlike Groundhog Day), Mayor Mills finds herself increasingly restless, drunken, and looking for a fight, which draws her into a confusing affair with her nemesis-Mary Margaret.
1. Little Ways of Hurting Me

**Little Ways of Hurting Me**

Perhaps all happy endings were this boring.

Or perhaps I had contracted the wrong imp to construct mine.

By my rather imprecise calculations, the curse had been cursing for about six years, and I had been drunk for about four days straight, wallowing in my own ennui.

If that damn dagger had my name on it, things would be different. Or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe I was a half-rate sorceress with stupid ideas of revenge. Or maybe all of this was the whiskey talking. But I knew for certain time here ran on a loop although I couldn't precisely identify the starting and ending points, and I was too drunk to ruminate on the respective roles of fate and free will in curses.

Nevertheless, I found myself depressed, restless, edgy, and-most disconcertingly-at an exact duplicate of a school board meeting I had attended three years ago, nodding and giving my "ayes" and "nays" and trying to pretend I was sober and interested. I was probably failing at both.

I knew I was failing at both when I tried to go home that night.

"Madame Mayor?" a tentative voice behind me said. I was leaning against my Mercedes, giving myself a pep talk about driving home. I hadn't thought any of it had been aloud, but I couldn't be one hundred percent sure. This part felt new, but maybe part of me was mercifully succumbing to the time paradox and joining the other townsfolk in obliviousness.

"Yes?" I said, straightening my posture but not turning around.

"I know it's not my place, but I'm a little concerned about you."

I turned then and found Snow White staring at me in her terrible Mary Margaret outfit and simpering wince.

"Oh?" I said.

"I-I've noticed the last few days you-" I wanted to giggle. I knew I was smiling now because she had shifted her weight and cocked her head.

"I what, dear?"

"Are you alright, Mayor Mills?"

"Yes, dear," I said. She was Snow White-the person I loathed most-but she also wasn't that at all-and I did giggle then. I giggled because she didn't know, and I giggled because I did, and I giggled because her face and her mannerisms were so much the same but clothed in such different apparel, such demeaning apparel.

"Well, um." And I giggled because I was seeing a flash of the old Snow White with a bow and arrow and what she would think of this sycophant, this terrible little person who didn't have any real words to say, just little notions and feelings and sympathies.

"Actually," I started-and the words came without my wanting them to come-"I'm not feeling quite myself. Could you see me home?" But once they did come, I wanted to giggle more. Having her attend to me and knowing she would be completely submissive and oblivious-it was exhilarating in a certain terrible way. Maybe this curse wasn't quite so boring as I had thought.

"Of course, Madame Mayor." Her eyes were large and open and wondering and worried. And most importantly, on me. I gave her my keys, and we drove. I made sure to look out the window so she couldn't see my residual giggle. Snow White had always had a soft spot for me. And Mary Margaret felt it, somehow. And it manifested in this obligation, this dutiful thing she was doing.

We arrived at my house, and we both stepped out of my car. I smirked. She wasn't looking at me, so she couldn't know that I was smirking about how I had a Mercedes and she had a station wagon. She couldn't know that I was smirking about her walking back to her own home contemplating why the mayor had been giggling, only to forget it instantaneously as the time loop started over the next day or next week or next month or whenever it did. She couldn't know I was smirking because the whole thing was so ludicrous and made me want to drink and giggle forever.

I was so wrapped up in thinking about smirking that I couldn't stop myself from saying,

"Thank you. I don't know what came over me. My chiropractor thinks I should have some bloodwork done."

"It probably wouldn't be a bad idea," she said. "You haven't seemed like yourself."

"Would you like to come in for a nightcap?" I said, still running on impulse and believing the lies I was telling her. I was probably just reeling from all the internal giggling.

She shifted her weight and bit her lip and cocked her head and did all those annoying Snow White mannerisms.

"Sure," she said, finally.

I poured two tumblers of my best whiskey, and we drank in silence, her frowning and me half smiling, until she said,

"Thank you for having me over."

"My pleasure," I said, and it was only half a lie.

"We appreciate your voice at the school board meetings," she said, looking into her glass. I could tell she was reaching for something in the back of her mind.

"A mayor who doesn't care about education is not much of a mayor," I said automatically. These sorts of politic phrases flowed so easily. I must've been affected by the curse, too, and I was grateful for the aplomb.

"You're right. But..." She looked up at me, wonder and worry always. Perhaps Snow White had had that expression a long time ago, before she had befriended a werewolf, before she had found her true love, way back when I was still saving her life on horseback. I suspected it was mostly a Mary Margaret affectation, though.

"But?" I said as I reached to refill our glasses.

"But maybe you're stretching yourself too thin?" She seemed to cower at the end. That was definitely not in Snow White's bag of tricks.

"Miss Blanchard. What are you insinuating?" I went fully into my Evil Queen voice, half to see if I could still do it without any practice and half to see if I could provoke a response that wasn't so weak and pathetic. Her eyes snapped up, flashing briefly in a haughty Snow White way that made me want to giggle again.

"I'm not insinuating anything. I'm just trying to show a little concern for you." She was sitting up straight and very close to standing up.

"Ah. So you're not suggesting I should skip out on school board meetings?" I stood, still Evil Queening. It felt good to be doing anything close to sparring like old times. "You weren't sent here by the superintendent to ensure my absence next time?" She stood, too, a little bit more Snow White yet.

"No! Of course not!" The worry and wonder had been Evil Queened out of her eyes, and in their place stood indignation and concern. I didn't know if that meant I had won or lost this round. I didn't know what winning or losing might look like in this strange land. But I took it as a gain anyway because if I didn't have an adversary, I didn't have anything. I smiled.

"Well, dear. Consider me convinced." I walked the three paces to her and moved to take her glass, making sure our fingers touched. "Don't you have school tomorrow, Miss Blanchard?"

"Yes." She cleared her throat, and in an instant Mary Margaret was all that was there. "Yes, Mayor Mills. Have a good evening." She practically ran out my front door.

Yes, I had won this round. I had coaxed Snow White to the surface and beaten her back again. I felt alive for a moment.

xxxxx

She was wearing a wig the next time I saw her, and I had to do a double take.

I had gone to the school play because I hadn't wanted to go to The Rabbit Hole, and I was already half drunk anyway.

And there she was as Pocahontas or Sacagawea or someone with a long black braid reminiscent enough of the old days that something came over me, and I just wanted any excuse at all to fight her.

"What is the meaning of this, Miss Blanchard?" I had cornered her in the parking lot afterward, the darkness and chilliness surrounding us like the Enchanted Forest. She jumped a little and turned to face me. The wig was gone, but the urge to fight her was still there.

"Oh! Hello, Madame Mayor. May I help you with something?"

"I asked you a question, Miss Blanchard."

"Um yes, I'm aware of that. But I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

Frankly I didn't know either; I grasped rather flailingly at something to spit out at her.

"This white-washed, asinine version of US History you're peddling."

"Oh! Of course, artistic liberties were taken-" she was still full of worry and wonder. I would have to push further to get to something grittier although it would be difficult considering how little I actually cared about this topic.

"Artistic? A completely fabricated and offensively insipid play for children now falls under the heading of art?"

"I understand your concern-" She was back peddling with a little more aggression in her voice, but it wasn't enough for me.

"You understand my concern? I'm concerned that you're lying to children instead of educating them. I'm concerned you're perpetuating-"

"If you'd like to take a look at my lesson plans, you're more than welcome. I have nothing to hide, and I assure you I'm not lying to the children." Her voice was firm and professional, and her eyes glistened with moral superiority. It felt like home. But I still had to win.

"Send them to my office. In fact, why don't you go ahead and make a habit of sending them to my office." She sighed resignedly, and Mary Margaret alone slumped into her station wagon.

xxxxx

I was achingly sober, and the bottom drawer of my desk in my mayoral office seemed to be taunting me about it. No knock preceded her rushed entrance. No hesitation preceded the smack of a Manila envelope onto my desk.

I hadn't even had to try to get those eyes back-those angry, superior eyes I hated and needed.

I raised an eyebrow, and the eyes receded, and Mary Margaret was there instead. I could've screamed.

"The lesson plans you asked for. Up until the end of the semester," she said in a voice just this side of pitiful.

"Thank you for your promptness, dear."

Her mouth set in a frown. A Mary Margaret frown, but it was something, at least.

"Is something wrong, Miss Blanchard?" She shook her head and opened her mouth, as if she would say something placating, and then her face sterned again into a Snow White face.

"I would prefer it if you didn't call me 'dear.'" It was quiet but firm.

"I'll take that into consideration." She nodded once and remained standing in front of me. We stared at each other until she looked away. "Have a good day. Miss Blanchard." I drew it out as long as a terrible name like that could be drawn.

"You, too, Mayor Mills." And she retreated with not even half the gusto she had come in with.

Again she sought me out at my office, and again she barged in. Her eyes were even better this time-furious and bright.

I couldn't help the smile that was spreading across my face although I had no way to hide it or explain it if she were to call me on it.

"What is this?" She said in kind of a hiss as she threw her lesson plans onto my desk. Ah yes, the week of April second had a big red x on top of it, and my handwriting in the margin labeled it "garbage." I wanted to laugh again as I had laughed the night I had marked it.

"It seems quite obvious to me," I said calmly, sweetly even.

"I do this unit every year," she said, a little bit whiny, but still enough Snow White that it encouraged me.

"And it is undoubtedly garbage every year."

"The students love it!"

"Children also love cotton candy and New Kids on the Block," I said. I was still smiling, and she was still furious, and my heart was beating faster.

"Erroneously comparing my birdhouse unit to confections and pop music does not change the fact that it's a damn fine lesson!"

"Miss Blanchard, I appreciate your passion, but I do not appreciate your language or your tone." She bowed her head, and I could see her filling up with Mary Margaret. "I also fail to see what fooling around with birds for a week has to do with the education standards in fourth grade." She looked up again, and dumped out all the Mary Margaret she had just poured in.

"I suppose you wouldn't. Did you even read the details? Or are you-as I suspect you are-simply doing this to torture me?" She was so earnest that I did laugh then.

"And what reason would I have to torture you?" I immediately wished I hadn't said that. I could see cogs turning in her brain. Sure, I wanted to have some of the old Snow to play with, but I didn't want to accidentally undo my curse.

"I really don't know, Regina." She had never called me by my first name in this land. "Have I done something to offend you?" She was all Snow White then. All sincere. I hated her. I bit back the part of me that wanted to say _Your very existence offends me_ and opted instead for,

"I simply want the best for this town. You can be so much better than you are." I immediately wished I hadn't said that, either. It sounded encouraging somehow, and her eyes brightened into something that was sickeningly both Mary Margaret and Snow White. I was too sober for this.

"And I want to be the best I can be for you." Her eyes widened, no doubt realizing what she had just said. "And for the students. And for this town," she added hastily. "But really. You can just talk to me. I'll listen."

"I'll take that into consideration." She smiled, and I could've slapped her face. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." She nodded and left. She paused at the door to toss over her shoulder,

"Have a good afternoon, Regina."

I got out my emergency whiskey and downed two fingers before I could admit to myself that this game was not the best cure for my boredom.

Perhaps I could try again the next time I found myself at that exact same school board meeting. By my rather imprecise calculations, it would turn up in another year or so.


	2. Teaching Me Brand New Ways to Be Cruel

**Teaching Me Brand New Ways to Be Cruel**

I had been drunk the last two times I'd been to this particular school board meeting. Other than that fact, specifics were hazy. I'd certainly been through this loop at least twice before, perhaps a few more that I couldn't even begin to remember. The loops had started blurring into each other, and I couldn't pinpoint anything other than sense memory of many parts.

I had found myself tentatively enjoying the curse knowing that nothing had lasting consequences. That way I could watch things unravel and ravel back and know that the real Snow White was somewhere shallowly buried under a dunce. I could and often did do whatever pleased me, whatever would tamper the undiagnosable niggling feeling in my gut.

It was boring at times, but freeing. And so I had passed the better part of ten or twelve years: experimenting and drinking and forgetting all of it in the next cycle-all of it except for the satisfaction that I knew and no one else did how weird it all was. It was a ridiculous life, and I was beginning to like it.

Regardless, I was sober now and leaning against the Benz, struggling against a wave of nauseating déjà vu, one of the only side effects I had discovered.

"Madame Mayor?" a voice behind me seemed to say. It was distant but prickly to my ears, and it raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

"Yes?" I said, straightening my posture but not turning around.

"I know it's not my place, but I'm a little concerned about you." I shook my head once more, trying vainly to get rid of the vague ominous feeling I was having.

"Miss Blanchard." I turned finally and saw her, cowering. "And whose place should it be?" I said with sudden and rather accidental ardor.

"I-" She looked down and back up. "I didn't mean to imply anything, I-"

"Oh for goodness sake, dear. Spit it out." She straightened herself and looked me in the eye. It was a Snow White-ish move, and it made my blood hum. I could've kicked myself for that.

"In the meeting this evening. You were quite mechanical. You're usually a little more passionate."

"Am I?" I said. She blinked. I hadn't known what I should say to that that would be mayoral, so I might have been accidentally flirting with her. The nausea was making me sloppy.

"Um, yes. Don't you always say that a mayor who doesn't care about education isn't much of a mayor?" She was acting coy, and I wanted to slap her. Instead I said,

"Of course I do. And that's the absolute truth. But you're right. I haven't been feeling like myself lately." We stared at each other for a second, and I forgot momentarily whether I was talking to Mary Margaret or Snow White or whether I was the mayor or the queen.

"If you ever need anyone to talk to, I'd be glad to listen." She smiled a little. It would've been a charming smile-charming to anyone but me.

"All right. You've convinced me. Take me home, Miss Blanchard," I said quickly before I could think better of it: I needed to see what all this was about, and the nausea made me unfit to drive anyway. I tossed her my keys, and she almost missed them as she scrambled wide-eyed to the driver's seat.

We drove in silence, and I openly stared at her profile, grim and focused and trying to pretend not to notice my staring. She really was lovely, and I really did hate her.

Finally, as we pulled into my drive, she cleared her throat and turned to face me.

"Perhaps you're-" she blinked. She was Mary Margaret, and I was neither mayor nor queen: I was just someone caught in the stammering void of politesse this nincompoop created wherever she went, and I was hanging on her non-words and cow eyes like an idiot. Shit. Was I sure I wasn't drunk?

"Yes, Miss Blanchard?" I said, not even trying to suppress my eye roll, although it might've been more directed toward myself than her.

"Perhaps you're wearing yourself too thin?" The déjà vu felt as though it was actively punching me, and I doubled over, clutching the dash. "Oh my!" She said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"I'm quite all right, dear, just a little under the weather."

"Let me help you inside."

I let her help me inside. The night was uncomfortably warm, and the feeling of her sticky body next to mine-all saccharine and smelling like candy and Elmer's glue-almost made me pitch again.

Before I could even ask her to leave, she had deposited me on my couch and was pouring me a snifter of brandy.

"Here," she said, looking anywhere but at me. "My mother always said a little brandy cures all ails." The déjà vu landed another jab. I didn't know whether her mother in either land had ever said this. But I knew for a fact I had said it to her once when she had been about thirteen with a headcold. I took the brandy anyway and didn't allow myself to shoot it although I wanted to, badly.

"Not too many mothers say things like that anymore," I said, peering at her scrunchy little face, hoping to garner a reaction. There wasn't much of one to speak of, just a flitting of eyes, a small strange shadow, then,

"I suppose not." She laughed. "Funny, it seems like a really long time ago." I raised an eyebrow, and she continued. "I don't remember much about her except some of her phrases. And that she had these beautiful, warm brown eyes."

She was staring at me; then she caught herself and sat down next to me.

I didn't have déjà vu anymore. The feeling punching me now was dread. And an acute anger. I didn't know what to do with either of them, but I knew I had to get this woman, whoever she was, out of my house immediately. I dug into the recesses of my brain for my Evil Queen voice and posture.

"That's all very enlightening, Miss Blanchard, but I think I'll be fine now. Unless you were thinking we would braid each other's hair and have a pillow fight." Her eyes rose slowly to meet mine-defiance, hurt, a small amount of something like rage in them.

"I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you with my childhood memories." Another blow from dread and anger landed squarely in my chest, and Snow White was staring at me. "I'll be going now." In a fluid, accomplished-bandit movement, she was at my door.

I hated her. And I needed to make sure she knew she should hate me in kind.

"I enjoyed the chat," I said with sweet venom. She turned her head to glare at me. "Come again when you can stay longer."

"I very highly doubt I will, Madame Mayor," she spit, polite and angry. "Have a good evening."

The door was slammed, and she was gone.

I told myself my belly was warm from the brandy.

xxxxx

I had gone to The Rabbit Hole instead of the school play. I was half drunk anyway, and this land's history-especially the white-washed, asinine version Mary Margaret peddled-bored me.

I was at a booth in the back with a gin and tonic, and I had to do a double take when I saw her. She was still in her Sacagawea or what-have-you costume, and the long, black wig was reminiscent enough of Snow White's old locks that I half expected her to fight me. I perused her costume, and I realized I was searching for a knife. I laughed out loud at myself.

Another few teachers walked in-a George Washington? a John Smith? I didn't know, and I didn't care-and then they were all talking and laughing at a table in the middle. Another few people ambled in to join them, and they all paired off to dance. Except for Miss Lonely Hearts, who held her chin in her hands, smiling sickeningly wistfully into her appletini.

I was surprised when I suddenly found myself sitting next to her. Somewhere between thinking of clever barbs and still searching for that knife I subconsciously must have wanted to be under her tunic, I had crossed to her table.

All that wistfulness vanished when she moved her eyes from her drink to me. She set her jaw, and her eyes were cold. Anything was better than that Mary Margaret cower, and I was glad not to have to endure any simpering.

But in a flash and a sip of her drink, the ice was gone, and a Mary Margaret grimacey smile had taken its place.

"Did you enjoy the play, Mayor Mills?" I blinked. "I assume that's why you came over here." I blinked again and composed myself.

"You assume incorrectly. I saw the dress rehearsal, and I detested it enough to come to this putrid establishment tonight instead of sit through it again." She ground her teeth.

"Then, if I may ask, why did you come over to my table?" We stared at each other-mayor and teacher, queen and outlaw.

"I was just idly wondering if you had any idea about how to appropriately use an elementary school costuming budget," I said, sweeter than her drink. She furrowed her brow.

"I-" her brain seemed to stumble back into a Mary Margaret haze, and I gained my footing even better.

"Because, dear, if you did, you might have thought to change out of city property before you began your night out gallivanting in smoky barrooms."

"I-we-we won't be here long, Mayor Mills, and we're taking them to the dry cleaner tomorrow." She winced a little as she said the last part.

"Oh? I don't recall that being in the budget."

"Well, we assumed-" She was shifting uneasily in her chair, and I fought the urge to pin her into a stationary position.

"I wish you'd spend more time doing your job and less time assuming." She turned her eyes to her cocktail napkin. "I'd like you to bring your expense reports to my office." They darted back to me, and I could've used the fear bubbling in them to carbonate my drink.

"I'm not in charge of-"

"Oh not just the drama department's expense reports. Your personal classroom expense reports." I was smiling now, a full Evil Queen smile, and she was frowning a pathetic Mary Margaret frown.

"Any particular reason why, Madame Mayor?" When she looked up at me this time, dread again punched me. Her eyes were so big and glassy I could actually see my reflection in them. I punched back at the dread. It wouldn't stop me.

"I'll be interested to see how deep the river of your incompetence and misuse of resources runs." I took a drink so I wouldn't choke on the words. She merely nodded.

"Yes, Mayor Mills."

I could feel her watching me as I paid my tab.

I turned back and caught her look. Before it had all been beat puppies, but now it was-just very briefly-an ankle biter, and it sent a weak jolt of electricity through me.

The tips of my fingers were tingling a little with the small whiskey I'd just finished. It felt enough like magic that I closed my eyes and was for a moment riding a horse through the Enchanted forest. There was a woodpecker-

No, that was a knock at my office door. I put the bottle back in my bottom drawer.

"Come in," I said.

Mary Margaret entered, head high, cardigan straight, a Manila envelope clutched to her chest. She paused just inside the door to stand just a little straighter.

"The expense reports you asked for," she said. Her eyes flitted around the room, and she took a breath, maybe readying herself to move closer to my desk. I rose and met her instead, and as I was walking there I couldn't fathom why. Maybe I wanted to inspect her to make sure she was truly fully Mary Margaret today.

"Thank you, dear. I think I'll just have a look at them right now, if you don't mind."

She cleared her throat.

"I'm actually-I've got-" I raised an eyebrow, and she sighed and said, "Um, of course." She had capitulated so quickly in a classic show of Mary Margaretness that I released a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. Knowing what I was up against made me bolder, and I invaded her personal space to take the folder from her.

I opened it and made a show of methodically checking all the totals, but I was not even really looking at any of it. I knew exactly the thing to bring up for a final test.

But first I let her stand there, breathing shallowly and watching the clock, waiting interminably for me to nod at a few things, roll my eyes at a few things-a whole performance. Finally, I said,

"Explain to me, Miss Blanchard, exactly why you need so much money for hardware?" She nodded and said firmly,

"You know very well that I do a birdhouse unit every year."

"Yes, dear. But I fail to see what fooling around with birds for a week has to do with the education standards in fourth grade." The sudden déjà vu-induced nausea could've knocked me over. I blinked, and she blinked. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry? What did you say?" she said rather shakily. I pretended to recover. Maybe I could trick all of us.

"You heard me, Miss Blanchard," I said automatically in my Evil Queen voice.

"Yes-um" she shook her head again and then looked at me so earnestly, and dread kicked me while I was down. "If you're so interested, perhaps you should come observe my class," she said starting a cautious smile.

"Again you assume. My only interest is your misappropriation of funds." She smiled outright, and I wanted to strangle her.

"My alleged misappropriation of funds," she said, smiling bigger. This was a victorious Snow White smile, and I didn't know how it had sneaked up on me the way it had.

"Yes, well. Perhaps an investigation might be prudent," I said.

"I'll see you next week, Mayor Mills," she said, and she veritably bounced out of my doorway.

I stood in the middle of my office, holding elementary school expense reports in a death grip-a grip that I wished were being used more effectively.

xxxxx

She had just demonstrated how to use a screwdriver and subsequently used it to gesticulate as she had given some trite little lecture about birds always finding their way home. Then the bell rang, sending a wave of ten year olds past me. She came to join me at the back of the room with a buoyant smile that made me wish the curse had at least given her less perfect teeth.

"What did you think, Regina?" I narrowed my eyes. She had never called me by my first name in this land. She averted her eyes and recanted. "Mayor Mills."

"I thought that was a very pretty speech."

"Thank you!"

"I was also wondering if next week you were going to teach the children how to navigate Fraggle Rock."

"I'm sorry?" I was grasping at any straw I could think of, and she was flabbergasted, but still mercifully Mary Margaret.

"Elementary school is for the elements, Miss Blanchard, not for fruitless flights of fancy. I've seen these children's test scores. They do not know their multiplication tables. They do not-"

"Excuse me, Mayor Mills, but I am educating these students to the very best of my ability. This project increases their knowledge and appreciation of nature, as well as-" she was talking quickly, all Mary Margaret in a tizzy. I needed to finish this and get out of here while I was still on top, before any unexpected nausea, déjà vu, dread, or anything else could arrest me.

"As well as what, dear? The ability to shirk their educational responsibilities in favor of arts and crafts?"

It was then that I noticed she still had that screwdriver. She was gripping it tightly in her dominant hand, and I had a flash of Snow White with a knife. My heart sped up as her nostrils flared and her eyes flared, too. Her voice was low and angry and all Snow White when she spoke again,

"However flippantly you want to declare this project mere arts and crafts, you know it's more than that."

"You haven't done a very good job convincing me," I said with a hair toss, ready to tally this as a win and forget all of the weirdness by the next school board meeting.

"I don't need to convince you. Because you already know." She had somehow stepped closer to me without my realizing it, and I found myself pressed against her cheerily decorated bulletin board, staring at the screwdriver still in her hand. Then I looked at her face, and her eyes were blazing. "You know it's more than that."

"I'm not fond of repeating myself, Miss Blanchard, but-"

"For some reason, you've made it your mission to attack me." I looked from her eyes-still ablaze but also awash with something else-to the screwdriver, back to her eyes.

"I'm hardly attacking you, dear. I'm merely concerned for your success-or lack thereof." I looked again at the screwdriver. Every time I did, her grip tightened.

"But what did I do to you to receive this personal concern?" She was openly searching me, now, and I had to actively tell myself not to squirm under her intense stare.

"I assure you it's not personal." She suddenly dropped the screwdriver and ran a hand through her hair with a mirthless laugh.

"I guess that's what politicians do." I raised an eyebrow. "They lie."

The bottom of my stomach dropped out.

Snow White walked away from me and started shoving papers around on Mary Margaret's desk.

She would forget this by the next school board meeting. I would forget this by the next school board meeting.

I needed to forget faster and more thoroughly.


	3. Treat Me Like Some Useless Thought

**Treat Me Like Some Useless Thought You Throw Away Each Night**

I hardly ever dreamt. Not in the Enchanted Forest, and certainly not in this land. And when I did, it tended to be horrible, grotesque, guilty nightmares. I thought for a second I was dreaming when I saw Snow White's face above me, stupidly angelic and backlit and gorgeous, damn her.

But it wasn't Snow White. It was Mary Margaret. I could tell because of the embroidered kitten where I would've reached to rip out her heart if I had the ability or inclination.

"Mayor Mills?" The maybe apparition might have said.

"Yes?" I might have said. I couldn't be sure. I was too drunk and maybe asleep to be sure. I blinked, and she didn't go away-she just visibly fretted harder, and I knew then I was awake.

"Mayor Mills," she said.

"Why are you in my house?" I said.

"Your door was unlocked." Mary Margaret bit her lip and stood up from her position of leaning and fretting over me. I was lying supine on my couch, and even though I had slept for some unidentifiable amount of time, I was pretty sure I was still drunk.

"And so you took it upon yourself to come in and wake me?"

"You missed the school board meeting."

"So?" I said. I was trying to process what was happening and failing.

"So...a mayor who doesn't care about education isn't much of a mayor," she said with a wince. I shut my eyes again, trying to will away the déjà vu and annoyance.

"Of course, dear. But a mayor who goes to school board meetings feeling like dog shit isn't much of a mayor, either." She winced again, bigger this time, and I was piecing together what was my current life, and what was a faded memory.

I was Regina Mills, mayor, and due to the strange and cyclical nature of my curse, I had gone to the exact school board meeting I had just missed between five and eight times in fifteen or so years. I remembered very little from all the iterations my current life had gone through, but when I did occasion to even half remember something, it made me positively ill.

Such was the case tonight, and I had preemptively drunk myself into enough of a stupor to endure the debilitating déjà vu that heralded the beginning of a new cycle.

After the first night it wasn't so bad. I could go so far as to say it was good in many respects. But then, of course, just when I thought something might be good, Mary Margaret inevitably showed up.

She was still hovering over me expectantly.

"Are you satisfied, then?" I said.

"Satisfied? I-" She paced a few steps away. "No, I-I'm sorry you're not feeling well. You haven't seemed like yourself lately."

My head already ached, and it ached more when I looked over and saw her terrible little face scrunched in worry.

What did that even mean that I didn't seem like myself? What did Regina Mills, mayor, seem like to Mary Margaret Blanchard, school teacher, especially at the beginning of a curse-revolution cycle?

"What do you mean, dear?" I said, and I tried to make it sound curious and friendly instead of annoyed and drunk.

She scrunched her face more.

"You know, I don't really know. I just feel something is wrong." An alarm bell sounded in my brain, but I was still curious and growing angry, and I couldn't quite keep the Evil Queen out of my voice as I said,

"But what am I usually like, and what am I like now?

She shook her head briefly.

"I don't know... You're usually..." She smiled hesitantly. "You're a very good mayor."

"And now I'm not?"

"No! Of course you're still-I-Perhaps you're wearing yourself too thin. Maybe you need a vacation?"

"And what? You're going to come over every day with chicken noodle soup and rub my back?"

"I-No, but-" something in her cower made me think that wasn't too far from the truth. My insides swirled angrily at the thought of it.

"Well, dear, I'll keep that in mind. But for now, I think it's safe for you to leave." I heaved myself into a sitting position and reeled with dizziness. She was there with her hand on my shoulder before I could even take another breath.

"Are you sure?" she all but whispered.

"I am not your ward, Miss Blanchard. I don't know what kind of complex has compelled you to force your way into my home and thrust your attentions and paltry services onto me, but I assure you they are neither warranted nor wanted." She shot up as if my shoulder had been a hot iron, and her eyes were large and indignant and Snow White.

"Excuse me if my kindness has offended you." Of course she would couch it in those terms instead of her intrusion into my private space. Of course! She was already at the door, but I couldn't let her leave with even the illusion of an upper hand.

"Your kindness!" I stood, still rather shaky. "Perhaps we have different definitions of the word. I've never been so kind as to break into anyone's home."

"I did not break into your home! I'm sorry that I was concerned about you after you didn't answer the doorbell. I'm sorry that I came in to find you nearly comatose. I'm sorry that you didn't come to the school board meeting because of your date with Jim Beam!"

I was taken aback by her sudden audacity and almost retorted defensively, but I realized that would make me only a pathetic drunk in her eyes-someone even worthier of her sympathies and righteous condescension. So instead I smiled and said,

"And let me assure you, dear: He's a perfect gentleman and a marvelous kisser."

She laughed haughtily.

"Fine. Have a good evening." She opened the door, still simmering with Snow White.

"And what? Don't let him get to second base unless he buys me dessert?"

She glared back at me, and I wanted her to slam the door, but she merely shut it.

I was still drunk, but I was no longer dizzy. It felt good to let so much air pass out of my lungs in a heated exchange. This could be a good cycle, Mary Margaret's meddling notwithstanding.

xxxxx

I almost left the auditorium when I caught her name in the program. She was to portray "Indian Maid" in what I was sure would be the worst play I'd ever seen. Several other teachers, the drama club, and the elementary school honor choir rounded out the rest of the cast, who would be dramatizing an abridged version of American history from 1600-1800.

I was half drunk, and I surreptitiously slept through most of it, waking only-somehow-to the parts where a long black wig tried to trick me into thinking I was staring at the actual Enchanted Forest Snow White. It made my naps in between feverish, and I could almost believe most of it was a dream. But I hardly ever dreamt.

I applauded groggily with everyone else and walked as quickly as I could to the exit. I wasn't quick enough, though.

"Madame Mayor," a rather shocked voice behind me said. I turned, and I clinched my skirt in my hands so that I wouldn't reflexively try to make any fireballs. It wouldn't have worked, and it would've looked awfully silly.

"Indian Maid. I have nothing I'd like to barter." I moved to turn again, but she said,

"Not even if I said I had fire water?" She raised her eyebrows with half a smile. Perhaps the wig was making her feisty. Perhaps she had misunderstood our last encounter.

"I wouldn't believe you," I said, again ready to turn.

"You're a sharp business woman," she said, still smiling, but then the smile faded, and fretting Mary Margaret was there with Snow White's hair. "I didn't think you would come tonight."

"If I would've known about the script I wouldn't have."

She laughed.

"Yes, well. A few less-than-artistic liberties might have been taken." I almost laughed, and then I realized this was getting dangerously close to friendly.

"And what about that, Miss Blanchard? Are you not concerned with the proper and accurate education of our youth?" She opened her mouth in a laugh and then seemed to register my almost painfully serious face.

"I didn't write the script, Regina." I narrowed my eyes at her. I couldn't recall her ever calling me by my first name in this land.

"But you did approve it."

"Well, yes. As sponsor of the drama club, I-"

"You saw fit to produce this affront to American history-this white-washed, insipid-"

"Yes. I thought it was cute and factual enough." She held her head high.

"Factual enough?" I laughed. "And when you teach them mathematics, how factual is factual enough?" She finally flinched, just a little.

"You know very well there is a difference between dramatized stories that hold viable emotional truths and the actual events that inspired the story," she said rather weakly.

"You know this, and I know this. Do the children know this?"

"Of course! Children are smart." She was pleading with me, Mary Margaret in Snow White's hair, or Snow White in Mary Margaret's pleading voice. I didn't even know.

"No thanks to you, I'm sure."

"Would you like to inspect my lesson plans? Audit my class? What do I need to do to prove myself to you?" She had put the ball in my court, but it didn't seem like I had full possession of it. I flipped my hair to give myself a second to process.

"Of course I would. If I had time. I have a town to run, and as much as you seem to think otherwise, people other than you live in it." I had said it more spitefully than I had intended, but I owned it and flipped my hair again for emphasis. I saw her take in a deep breath and steel herself.

"I'll bring my lesson plans through the end of the year to your office next week," she said with righteous finality.

"Very well, dear. Hopefully I can squeeze you in." She steeled herself again.

"Yes hopefully. For the students' sakes," she said with a bite.

I would've rolled my eyes, but it would've given her too much satisfaction.

xxxxx

I made sure to be sober all week at my office. I had to be at my sharpest when she decided to arrive. I could neither confirm nor deny having practiced a few barbs. But I had definitely decided I would be finding some reason to attack that birdhouse unit. It was the thing Mary Margaret loved most, and I would ruin it, and it would be glorious.

I came back early from my lunch break. And there she was sitting in my guest chair calmly but with a little Mary Margaret slump to her shoulders.

"Miss Blanchard. I was beginning to think you might renege." She turned her head to the sound of my sickly sweet voice.

"Never," she said, looking me straight in the eyes. She stood and faced me. "My lesson plans are on your desk. I just wanted to personally make sure you received them."

"How very thoughtful, dear. Would you like a gold star?" I was still sickly sweet, and her face was stern and soft simultaneously.

"No, thank you. I'm more inclined to give than to receive." It was said softly, in a Mary Margaret way, but there was something of Snow White in there, and I wanted to know what she was up to.

"Well, perhaps you'll give me one if I do my homework on time."

"I doubt it. You wouldn't appreciate it." And she was sparring with me, but with an air of sadness in her voice. I didn't like it.

"And why wouldn't I?"

"You're not the type of student who goes after extrinsic rewards." I raised an eyebrow. What was she after? "You do things only if they please you."

"And you think it pleases me to spend my free time analyzing your anticipatory sets that introduce undoubtedly prosaic lessons on multiplication tables?"

"No." She bit her lip. "I think it pleases you to antagonize me," she said quietly but firmly.

"And what is the point of this tedious conversation?" I stepped closer to her, my voice as low as hers and twice as firm. "What if it did please me? What would you do about it?" She bowed her head but didn't move away.

"I suppose I would let you." And she looked up at me, a masochistic Mary Margaret. I would've kicked her, but she looked as though she would've enjoyed it.

"Well, Miss Blanchard," I said, even closer and even lower. "I hope for the sake of your classroom management, you're not this indulgent with your students."

I stepped past her, brushing the entire right side of my body against her entire right side. I felt her shiver.

My door was slammed before I even sat down in my office chair. I grimaced, and I didn't know why.

She was in my office at seven am, standing in the middle of the room, furious. Before I could say something clever about her breaking into offices even better than she broke into houses, she was talking-all spit and poorly concealed rage-Mary Margaret facing the school board, Snow White facing a troll.

"I went to school early this morning and found I had no supplies for my birdhouse unit. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"Why yes, dear. Didn't you get the memo?" I was smiling genuinely, and she was frowning twice as genuinely.

"What memo?"

"I could've sworn I sent you a polite letter informing you your budget for useless projects had been cut."

"I received no such letter. And if I had, I would've known I would have to pay out of pocket instead of showing up with nothing."

"I suppose you'll have to improvise, dear." I took off my coat and moved to pass her, but something in the quiet anger of her voice stopped me.

"What do you think I'm doing here?"

"I supposed you were here to file a formal complaint. But that would be too easy, wouldn't it?"

"I've already looked through your appointment schedule," she said, inching closer.

"How industrious."

"And you're no longer free from one to three this afternoon," she said, shining with a Snow White gleam of something like hope.

"Oh?"

"You will be helping me with a career talk," she said, beaming more. She was close enough for me to strangle her.

"Oh? And why would I be doing that?"

"Because if my birdhouse unit is useless, what is useful? What could be more useful than you?" When had she become so enterprising? This wasn't just Snow White-this was Bandit Snow White, and I half expected her to be concealing a crossbow somewhere. Before the practical side of me could decline, the brash and combative side of me was saying,

"While I don't look forward to working that closely with you, I do applaud you for finally coming to your senses about that foolish birdhouse unit." I didn't know what I thought she would do, and for a second I didn't think she did either. She slammed her hand down on my desk.

"No!"

"I've just agreed to your idiotic-"

"No! My birdhouse unit is a damn fine lesson! And you are a poor substitute for it!"

"Well, if that's the way you feel about it, I could just as easily cut me out of your budget." I really thought she was going to slap my face for a split second, but what actually happened was even more heinous.

"You couldn't if you tried!" she cried, and then her mouth was on mine. Her eyes were scrunched shut, and I could feel the heat of anger and confusion rolling off her. I thought if I analyzed it hard enough, I wouldn't give in, but I was only slightly more stunned than she appeared to be, and I might have put my tongue in her mouth before I could navigate the situation.

We kissed, and it was strange and mean and angry and unpleasant, but I couldn't stop, and she didn't stop. Her hand that had slammed my desk was now grabbing my hip with the same intensity, and her other hand was on my neck. I wished she would choke me. The guilt of her murdering me in a moment of passion would last her a lifetime, and that would be a good punishment for her.

Until she woke up during the next cycle, and the town just didn't have a mayor and no one would know the difference.

So I kept kissing her, and we were tangled around each other, and the rough, ugly material of her rough, ugly clothes made me want to rip them off. But I didn't. She had started this. If she was willing to have a quickie in my office before she went to teach fourth grade, I would let her. Because I knew she would hate herself for it.

Why hadn't I thought of this sooner?

She would hate herself for wanting me, touching me, being the aggressor, not knowing why she needed to be close to me any way I would let her.

I would hate myself, too, because she was sick, and I was sick, and this was weird and wrong and not what I had intended.

But she would be suffering.

And that would be enough.

If only I could file this bizarre and hard-won tidbit away for the next cycle.


	4. I'll Always Reign over Loneliness & Pain

**I'll Always Reign over Loneliness and Pain**

I was trying to console myself with the fact that not all the cycles were the same across the board. I was unfamiliar with temporal mechanics in curses, but I knew that there was a heavily pregnant girl in town, and logically her cycle couldn't last for more than a few months at most. Cycles, theoretically, could be geographically linked because she lived all the way across town. Maybe it was because I was spending more time recently around the elementary school-

I shuddered.

I was sitting there at the school board meeting-what should have been _the_ school board meeting-trying to will myself to have déjà vu. The nausea was coming, but the déjà vu refused, and then I caught Mary Margaret staring at me from across the room-devotion and hate and lust and worry and all kinds of terrible things palpably emanating from her-and I had to get out of there.

Of course she followed me to the ladies' room.

"Regina?" She knew I was in this stall, so I couldn't very well pretend not to be.

"What?"

"Are you-is something wrong?"

I still remembered our fevered bodies writhing around angrily on several different surfaces in several different locations, and I wretched unsuccessfully into the toilet. Somehow I knew I was not supposed to remember.

"Regina, I-" and I could tell by the stupid concern in her voice that she remembered, too. I definitely knew she wasn't supposed to remember.

"It's nothing, dear. Just a little morning sickness." I had wrenched the door open to find her staring at me wide eyed. I rolled my eyes. "Don't look so excited. I suppose you went to school where they didn't teach sex ed."

I pushed past her and washed my hands.

"But really... What's wrong?" Our reflections were staring at each other in the mirror. She was trying to dominate me with kindness, and I hated both of us.

"It's none of your concern." I dried my hands and turned around.

"But I want it to be." She was wringing her hands with some kind of damned longing.

"Mary Margaret. I want to be clear." She brought her eyes to mine, trying to stare past them into some part of me that would tell her something she didn't know but wanted to hear.

I had been panicking about this development, this change in the curse-cycle-revolution, thinking something was so wrong and needed to be fixed, but her eyes-her stubborn Snow White eyes, her confused Mary Margaret eyes, these eyes that were so filled with contradictions they might actually explode-prodded me, needled me, made me come to a decision. She was suffering-albeit in a way that sickened me-and this thing could prolong it, however grotesque it all was.

So I scrapped the dear john I had half prepared and switched from stern to flirtatious: "It's a woman's prerogative to keep secrets." I trailed a finger down her bicep. She closed her eyes at the tickle of it.

"And your prerogative especially?"

"You're so intuitive, dear." I leaned into her and whispered in her ear, "It's why I keep you around." I felt her shudder at the wetness of my breath.

"No it's not."

"Oh?" And I licked the shell of her ear with that.

"You keep me around to torture me."

"And you-" I moved my mouth to her neck briefly then back to her ear. "You keep me around to torture yourself." She had let herself touch me at last, and her hands were softly running up and down my thighs. I wanted to want to flinch, but I didn't. She was alarmingly deft at arousing me, and I hated both of us.

"I wish it weren't true," she whispered, almost to herself. And one hand was underneath my skirt now, trying to trail up seductively.

"Well, wish in one hand, dear." I kissed her cheek and extricated myself in one swift move.

She was staring at my reflection, trying to submit to me with kindness, and I hated both of us. And I left.

I could keep this up indefinitely. And if I couldn't, I would just have to make myself. She hated her life too much for me to stop now.

xxxxx

It was taxing enough to be under a curse with a bunch of people who didn't know how worthless they truly were, but now here I was with a lover I hated. If it hadn't been so maddening it might have been funny.

My mistake tonight was thinking I might have a safe place to go that would give me a moment's reprieve from her and this twisted game we were playing.

I was drunk and oddly sentimental and found myself driving to the cemetery. Too late I noticed the headlights behind me, glittering in the rain and unswervingly pulling into the drive. I didn't get out of my car but waited for her to slosh up to my window, soaked by the time she arrived those fifteen or twenty paces. I rolled down the window.

"Not a great night for decorating graves, Miss Blanchard."

"I could say the same to you," she all but yelled over the rain and wind.

"Yes, but my family has a dry mausoleum." It had sounded too much like an invitation.

"Do you mind if we go there before I catch my death?" I was just drunk enough to laugh at her wording. If only I had the power now to number her heart among the cache in the lower level. It would be easy to get it. She would probably just give it to me. I laughed again.

She was scrunching her wet brow at my paroxysm.

"Yes, dear. I'd love to let you in if you'd let me out of my car."

"Oh! Sorry!" she said and jumped back to open the door for me. I held my umbrella over both of us and unlocked the mausoleum.

Even when I turned on the lights, it remained dim and dreary and so damp. It would've been the perfect place to contemplate my life choices if this terrible little person would've let me go there alone.

I shook out the umbrella and peered at her.

"Is there a reason you followed me here, Miss Blanchard?" She was prying at her cardigan, trying to convince it to release some of its accumulated moisture. She looked up at me.

"I went to your house first. I thought we might talk." She went back to cajoling her clothing, flitting her eyes between me and the wool of her skirt.

"About?"

She stopped what she was doing but didn't look up.

"About-" she slowly moved her eyes to mine. "About what's happening."

My stomach clenched. A thought flashed that she might be talking about the skewed time cycle, and I panicked momentarily. And then I remembered that was probably impossible. I looked at her to be sure. She was all Mary Margaret-all apologies and worry and wonder, and I put on my sexy Evil Queen.

"You mean about us fucking." She winced briefly but held my gaze.

"Yes."

"And what would you like to say about it, dear?" I walked a step toward her. "That we shouldn't?" Another step. "That you hate it?" Another step. "That it's wrong?" Another step and I was in her face. "That we should stop?" She closed her eyes and took a breath that was all me.

"No."

"What, then?" She opened her eyes, and they were millimeters away from mine and boring into me.

"That I'm-" she averted her eyes but couldn't stop herself from pressing toward me. "That I worry about you." I licked her neck, and she shuddered.

"And why is that?" I was sure it had to do with my drinking and stealing away to graveyards, but I had asked anyway, at least to prolong the game.

"I don't think you want this," she said, sincere although her body was trembling against me.

"You must think I'm a damn fine actress, then." I traced the line of the cup of her bra, so very visible underneath wet fabric.

"I-" I kissed her neck, and she sighed. "I don't know what you want from me." I kissed her neck again, more roughly this time, a little bit of teeth.

"I just want you," I breathed into her. Of course, this was only half of the sentiment. I wanted her to suffer, to die, to be consumed with desolation and anguish. I wanted her to feel what I felt.

"I wish I could believe that," she said as she slid her hands up my sides.

"You don't have to believe it, dear." My hands rested on her shoulders as I went for her neck again.

"But a person has to believe something," she said, edging her fingertips beneath my blouse.

"A person believes whatever is convenient." Her fingers were on my stomach now, typing gibberish on the qwerty of my abdomen and making me lose my train of thought.

"Is that what this is for you? Convenient?" she hadn't stopped typing, but she spoke in a stupid quaking whisper. Surely my teeth were sharp enough to sever something vital in the long pale throat I was kissing.

"More or less," I said. I forced myself to grab her neck gently and pull her mouth to me. Her hands stilled between our bodies, and her mouth didn't comply with mine.

"Regina, I-" she mumbled. I pulled away from her completely.

"So what you really meant is that you don't want this." My voice was half hurt and half relief and all spite.

"No, I-" she reached for my arm, but I pulled it away. "You're drunk and my clothes are wet and this is your father's grave," she said, whiney and firm.

All of those things were true, and I laughed.

"So?" I said and laughed again. Her eyes widened.

"So, don't you think something's wrong with this? Isn't it supposed to be different?"

My stomach clenched again. She couldn't possibly mean the time cycle. I wanted to probe her to be sure, but I couldn't risk it, so I went on the offensive.

"Why are you being so deliberately obtuse with this interrogation? Wouldn't you rather sit me down in the sheriff's station with a bright light in my eyes?"

"No, I just want you to-" she shook her head. "I just want you to be happy with me." She obviously didn't know what she was saying. She couldn't. And it felt good and awful that she felt awful.

"That's not on the table. What's your second choice?" She narrowed her eyes, hate and something akin to a stupid love spewing out of them. I hated both of us.

"You know very well what my only choice has always been." She reached out again to me, and this time I let her. I let her caress my cheek without turning and biting her finger off.

"I'm glad we're on the same page."

"But you could choose something else." She said it so softly that I thought maybe I had imagined it.

"I'm terrible at choices. Why do you think I ended up here with you in the first place?" And I might've imagined that, too. And our arms were around each other, and we were kissing softly at first, or maybe I was imagining the softness, and then it was hard, and I knew my mouth would hurt tomorrow from it. If there happened to be a tomorrow where I remembered today. And I laughed again.

"I'll take you home," she said-the dutiful little dunce taking care of her drunk lover she hated.

"I wouldn't be caught dead in a station wagon." But she was already pulling me to it.

She forgot the umbrella, and we stumbled in the rain together. She opened the passenger door for me and tried to step away, but I pulled her in to fall onto my lap and hit her head on the roof. In an awkward jumble of limbs, I shut the door and arched into her mouth. She was pushing me away and pulling me toward her at the same time, trying to find a way to gain control of at least one of our bodies. She controlled mine first, grabbing my shirt and pinning an arm and adjusting herself on top of me. I always forgot until moments like these how strong she was.

"Damn it, Regina, I-" I kissed her, hard, and she melted into it before pulling away again. "Just let me take you home." I moved my hips to meet hers, and she kissed me, harder.

Her hands were in my hair now, pulling me deeper and deeper into her kiss that was harder and harder. And my hands were on her hips pulling her into me and pushing her back in a rhythm fit for a foxtrot-rigid and frantic.

"I thought you wouldn't be caught dead in a station wagon," she whispered.

"It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind," we were both whispering and panting and trying to be sexy in a claustrophobic, musty bench seat.

"And your prerogative especially," she said against my ear.

And her hands were still in my hair, still pulling. I had found my way into her skirt, somehow had fumbled past the bunched up wet fabric to the sticky skin of her thighs. This part was always the weirdest part to me-the clear moment when I was still thinking about hating her and punishing her but that my body started taking over the proceedings. Because my body liked her body, and I hated both of us for it.

So there we were, in the front seat of her car, and I was rubbing a line up and down her white cotton panties and marveling at her taut quadriceps on either side of my lap. She was canting her hips, trying to make me make more contact, and her hands slipped out of my hair and onto unbuttoning my blouse. She suddenly stopped all her movements, and I stopped, too, at the sight of her perked eyes and the feeling of headlights behind us.

She scrambled off me and mostly fell into the driver's seat.

"It's the sheriff," she said. I laughed.

"So he's finally noticed you've been stalking me." She sent me a glare and rolled down her window for his approach.

"Evening, Miss Blanchard." He shined his flashlight in, and his face registered surprise. "Madame Mayor."

"Good evening, Sheriff," she said.

"It's after hours, you know," he said. I looked at him in the dimness, and I could almost believe we were back in the Enchanted Forest. I accidentally laughed again when I remembered I had his heart in my vault. "Something funny, Mayor Mills?"

"Everything's funny if you look at it the right way, Sheriff." He opened his mouth to say something, but I stopped him. "Now, if you'll excuse us, Miss Blanchard was taking me home."

"Is she all right?" he said quietly to Mary Margaret. I laughed again.

"No," I said. "That's why I needed a ride home." He looked at Mary Margaret and then at me and then back at her.

"Drive safely," he said with a furrowed brow, and he moved away so that she could reverse.

We didn't talk on the drive back. She was visibly fretting, and I hated her. Finally when we pulled in, she turned to me and said,

"We're a bad idea, Regina." All I could see was a ten-year old Snow White about to tattle on me.

"I know, dear," I said, and I left. I couldn't help but smile as I poured myself a whiskey and settled in on my couch.

xxxxx

My morning routine consisted of waking up a few minutes before my alarm clock and immediately cataloging what I remembered and what I didn't, checking for déjà vu, mentally replaying scenes from the previous few months.

I would then sometimes wonder if I had done this every cycle, and I was always reasonably certain I hadn't. I somehow instinctively remembered the starting point but not the ending point of my regular time cycle, and it was, I assumed, especially unnerving not to know what might be the tipping point for this one. I thought about it more than was probably healthy.

I then would brush my teeth, pick out an outfit, make myself an omelet, read the paper, and drink two cups of coffee. All the while I would be thinking about how I might be able to force the curse's hand.

Maybe I would have to change something to change the timeline.

Maybe if I broke it off with her.

But she was suffering so beautifully.

But I was suffering equally. Mostly because of the constant looming reminder that it all could be erased the next day, and I might make all the same mistakes next time.

Maybe I could leave myself a note.

I wondered, too, if that would work. Or would it magically disappear as the cycle regenerated my memories? Stranger things had happened, I supposed.

I got drunk enough one night to do it anyway.

Of course, that's not how the evening started.

I had had about a half a bottle of wine at dinner, and then, because I had nothing better to do, I went to the elementary school choir concert.

I knew I would be switching to whiskey when our eyes met over the off-key strains of a male soprano solo of "Wind Beneath My Wings," and I could almost feel her longing.

Afterward she approached me in the hallway outside the auditorium, as I had suspected she would.

"Madam Mayor. I would be interested in continuing our conversation from a few nights ago." She had said it rather furtively, shyly, shamefully.

"I am amenable. Come to my house after you've finished here." I left with a hair toss, figuring she would be around in another half hour to feebly simper at me and then finally succumb to her urge to be close to me in the most demeaning way possible.

I took the time her cleaning up and putting away folding chairs afforded me to drink one and a half whiskeys, put on a silk negligee, and lie on the couch staring at the ceiling marinating in every awful, conflicting feeling in my brain and body.

She rang the doorbell at the twenty-eight-minute mark.

"Hello. I-" I pulled her in by her Peter Pan collar and forcefully kissed her before she could even try to simper. Her tongue was searching my mouth in a mixture of lust and apology, and she broke away.

"I really did want to talk," she said, bashfully concealing how much she had enjoyed her welcome.

"That makes one of us," I said, pulling her in again. But before our lips met, she turned her head and said,

"Please." I pressed my body against hers anyway.

"Please what, dear?" I had expected her to prattle on about something maudlin, but she turned her face to me and said,

"Please take me upstairs." I looked into her eyes, and they were Snow White eyes-determined and strong. She placed a hand over mine on her collar and looked at me with those Snow White eyes again, pleading. "Please, Regina."

And I did, stupidly. I took her-or she took me-to my bedroom, where we kissed again, full body against full body, soft then hard then soft again. Her hands were on my face, my breasts, my hips, and mine were firmly on her collar, spurring her on. I was already at the point where my body was taking over, and I hated both of us.

We kissed, and it was all tongues and teeth and what shouldn't have been, and her hands were again on top of mine, gently and firmly.

"Please," she said, and I undid the buttons of her blouse as hastily as I could; all the while she was pushing me steadily toward my bed. We had never fucked in anyone's actual bed before, yet here we were about to be in mine.

I felt the coolness of my comforter beneath me and the heat of her body on top of me, and I was divesting her of her terrible clothing as efficiently as I could in my current half drunk state. Sometimes she seemed to care how much I had drunk, but now was not one of those times.

Her blouse was completely off by the time she pressed me into my bed, her hips connecting with mine and her voice lowering a fourth to moan my name. I pulled her into me and forced myself to call her Mary Margaret.

Her lips travelled from my mouth to my collarbone to the lace of my silk negligee covering my left breast, and I looked at her-her eyes half closed in pain and pleasure. Her hands were fairly clawing at my sides, and she was writhing on top of me. I wished for a fleeting moment I could be immune to it, but I wasn't. Not only did it satisfy me to see her like this-all hate and lust-but also it made me so wet. I wanted her, and I hated both of us.

She kissed me again, hard and crazy and sloppy, and she reached around to the zipper of her skirt. She tore it away, and I could see anguish in her eyes, right behind the desire. Again and again we kissed-angry, punching-until she pulled away again to attack my neck with suction and teeth, and I liked it too much.

"It's a little warm for turtlenecks, don't you think?" I growled. She shot up, eyes wide and feral, tearing off her own bra in the process.

"You're the mayor. You can wear what you want," she said, low and threatening. And then she grabbed the hem of my negligee and pulled it off me as if Bandit Snow White were gutting a fish.

My arms were above my head now from this violent movement, and she took the opportunity to place her body on top of mine, connecting with my skin and making me gasp despite myself. She grinded against me and kissed my ear.

I was surrendering to her, and I hated both of us.

My hands were pushing at her white cotton panties before I even knew it, and she was kissing along my jawline.

"Mary Margaret," I heard myself say. "Fuck me already." Oh how I hated both of us.

She lifted her hips so I could tear her panties away, and then she was back on me, all nude and all motion. There was friction but not enough, and I pulled at her hair and mashed her breast, and she growled her approval into my mouth as she kissed me again, harder and harder until I was desperate for her, or she was desperate for me, or we were desperate for each other.

A hand seemed to trickle down my thigh, and I didn't notice it at first, until there were nails cutting several half moons into the outside and then dragging to the ticklish inside where they ran a smooth and seductive race up and down. And then those same fingers were still. She looked down at me, and I panted at her. She kissed me, smiled, and didn't have to force two fingers inside me. I took them too willingly, and we fucked in a rhythm she set, and I hated myself. And then I remembered to hate her, too.

She was kissing my neck, nudging my jaw, trying to make me open my eyes, and I did, and she was there above me, using her whole body to do what she was doing, but mostly her eyes, which were glistening and deep. Her movements were precise and calculated and skillful, somehow, and she dragged her fingers over my clit now-still kissing me and just looking at me and breathing on me and then pounding into me, and after several minutes of this-my unabated mewling and her catering to the way I was arching into her-I came, and she sighed and kissed my neck as she rubbed slow circles over every quivering part of me, and I hated her less than I should have.

We lay there, breathing on each other until she kissed me slowly and deeply, gently but insistently pulling me so that I would know what she wanted. I guessed she thought she was being subtle, but she wasn't.

She liked me to use my mouth, so I did. She always tasted like brown sugar and metal, and it wasn't as unpleasant as I would've imagined it, if I ever were to imagine that sort of thing.

I always started off slowly to build her already palpable arousal, kissing, licking, biting down her nude and sweaty flesh, but she always got impatient when I reached her vulva-and she hated to seem impolite-so I was quick. I grabbed her thighs roughly for effect, and maybe a little because my body particularly liked her thighs, and licked steadily, methodically, frantically at the end when she was bucking so hard that I could hardly catch a breath. And she came in a scream and a shudder, and I always forgot to have a towel handy, but she always wanted to kiss me right after anyway.

She grabbed me right after-not even a hint of afterglow-and hoisted me toward her and kissed me this time as if she might never kiss anyone again, thrust a leg between mine, pressed us together madly.

Usually either one or the other of us came, sometimes both, and hardly ever more than once, but I let her lead, and we continued for some time, writhing, groping, taking, giving, until, finally sated, she sleepily kissed me and said,

"Thank you for letting me upstairs," and promptly fell asleep, and next to me was the child I remembered from years and years ago.

By this time I was mostly sober and sore and wanted to be neither, so I sneaked downstairs to my liquor cabinet and, most importantly, away from her before I kissed her hair or cuddled into her or anything completely ridiculous like that.

I downed a double and paced for a few minutes and downed another double.

This was getting out of control. Now she would probably start showing up with an overnight bag. How long before she just ignored everything terrible about it and started really enjoying it? How long before I was the only one hating any of us anymore?

I sat down at my writing desk with a pen and paper.

I just sat there looking at it, wondering what a note to myself in another time cycle might sound like, nursing another drink. I heard footsteps and then,

"Regina? Is everything-"

"You should go," I said, finally deciding and scribbling out a few words just to see what they looked like.

"Are you-" I turned to see her in my robe, and I wanted to scream, but I did the next best thing.

"Gather your things and leave before I kick you out as is and burn everything you left behind."

Her eyes went wide, a little in fright, and I already felt better.

"Regina, please-"

"Now, Miss Blanchard." She wanted to stare at me pleadingly for a lot longer than she did, but she acquiesced.

She sent me a look as she left, one that was indiscernible as either Snow White or Mary Margaret-it was just really sad, and there was an air of finality about it.

Good. Good riddance. This could be a new way to make her suffer. I tried to reach back in my memory to see if Snow White was the jealous type. It might be fun to find out.

But for now, I was drunk enough to ignore the smell of her on my sheets and slip into a probably fitful and dreamless sleep.

xxxxx

I woke up a few minutes before my alarm. I felt unaccountably strange, but I shrugged it off and brushed my teeth as I surveyed my closet for an outfit.

The one I ultimately picked out seemed too familiar, but I supposed one only had so many clothes.

I descended the stairs to make myself an omelet and drink two cups of coffee and read the paper, whose headline nudged at the edge of my consciousness.

There was something off about today. I cleared my mind and ran through what my plans were: a conference with the trash company, an interview with Sidney, a school board meeting.

Déjà vu hit me in the stomach, and I struggled to keep my omelet down.

The school board meeting.

I went through the rest of my day, and I could keep it together, but the closer that school board meeting approached, the more I felt as if I might actually die from nausea. I called the school board president to tell him I wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be in attendance.

And then I went to my liquor cabinet to try to soothe my nerves. But as I reached for my favorite whiskey, a slip of paper fluttered out.

In a shaky hand barely recognizable as mine it read:

Dear Regina,

It may seem like a good idea, but it's not. In fact, it's more trouble than it's worth.

Do not fuck Mary Margaret.

Yours,

Regina

I stared at it for a long time.

I didn't know what to make of it. Surely it was a well-intentioned note from a previous time cycle. But, how in this world or any other would I think it prudent to have any kind of relationship with Mary Margaret Blanchard, let alone a sexual one?

I sat on my couch with a mostly untouched glass of whiskey and the note, and the doorbell rang. I shoved the note into my pocket and called out for whoever it was to come in. I was dizzy and nauseated, and didn't feel like getting up.

"Mayor Mills, I heard you weren't feeling well." It was Mary Margaret, and she had a Tupperware container. "I brought you some soup." I was staring at her and thinking about the note and becoming increasingly uncomfortable and curious. I realized I had stared too long when she cocked her head at me.

"I'm sorry, thank you, Miss Blanchard. I just feel terrible this evening. This bug must be affecting my manners, as well."

"Oh that's all right, Mayor Mills. There is certainly something going around. I woke up sore this morning myself."

I shuddered. She mistook it for a shiver of fever and drew closer.

"Can I get you anything else?" Her eyes were shining with a strange devotion already, and I felt like a dog's dinner, and I kept thinking about the bizarre note from the erased past, and I decided to nip it in the bud.

"Yes. You can get out. I will be just fine without you, Miss Blanchard."

"I'm sure you will be just fine without anyone," she said, a cold hurt in her voice. She stared at me another moment, the wheels turning in her cursed brain, and I wondered how much the déjà vu might affect everyone else. She turned quickly and started to leave.

But then she stopped, set down the Tupperware next to where I set my keys, looked back at me with determination, and continued her exit.

I finished my whiskey in one go and threw the note into the fireplace.

A lady needed a hobby, even if it was a time-tested bad idea.


End file.
